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If you’re like leaders at many organizations, you gauge team performance with spreadsheet metrics. A quick check of your company’s CRM system lets you know how many customers the sales team has contacted. A review of a project’s key performance indicators reveals the productivity level of the manufacturing workforce.
Black and white results are easy to measure, but they don’t evaluate how a team functions collectively, according to John Estafanous, Founder and CEO of RallyBright, Inc., an SaaS platform that helps managers measure, diagnose and improve business performance.
Estafanous said that team performance goes beyond spreadsheet metrics. He believes it involves evaluating how effectively teams operate as a unit by assessing their adherence to commitments, proficiency in achieving goals and ability to work with the right systems in place. Teams are composed of individuals, and no one operates in isolation when striving to achieve the objectives of the group.
“The challenge lies in precisely measuring how teams function as cohesive units. This is where an opportunity emerges for leaders to reframe their perspective,” Estafanous said. “Managing teams is not only about effective communication or servant leadership. Rather, it’s about examining teams as a whole and understanding the proven methodologies that drive high-performance teamwork.”
The ability of teams to consistently perform at a high level boils down to five key attributes, according to Estafanous. “Taken together, they add up to resiliency, the holy grail of success in today’s workplace,” he said. “If your team is strong in all five of these areas, it’s firing on all cylinders.”
Direction. This dimension focuses on a shared purpose and vision among team members. When teams align their goals with organizational objectives, it becomes easier to clarify roles, responsibilities and decision-making processes. To find out whether your team understands their shared purpose, ask them to jot down the company’s goals and objectives.
“Sharing and discussing these responses can help your team sharpen its focus on its mission and get on the same page about what team success looks like,” Estafanous said.
The best way to integrate discussions about direction and goals into your company’s culture depends on your organization’s established processes, according to Estafanous. He said the first step is to create a common language and framework, whether that’s through casual conversations or formal tracking within your objectives or project management goals.
“The key is to integrate these discussions into your daily operations based on the foundation you’ve established,” Estafanous said. “For example, you might assign champions to track specific opportunities and report progress regularly.”
Connection. Highly connected teams know that they can do more together than they can on their own, Estafanous noted. An examination of team dynamics looks at how psychological safety, communication and conflict is handled. Effective conflict resolution can drive innovation and collaborative problem-solving, according to Estafanous.
“Productive teams trust one another, experience psychological safety and are open to constructive conflict. To determine the health of connection on your team, take a closer look at interpersonal behavior,” he said. “If some team members seem reticent to ask for help, uncomfortable speaking their minds or engaged in passive-aggressive behavior, your team may need help handling conflict productively.”
Estafanous said establishing team norms plays a crucial role in addressing these challenges. “It involves defining how we want our team to be perceived, how we aim to interact and what expectations we have for one another,” he explained. “The key is to formalize these norms in a way that allows team members to put them into action when collaborating with other departments within the organization.”
Adaptability. As remote and hybrid work environments continue to be the norm, silos can emerge that impact relationships among teams. Creating rules of engagement and fostering collaboration with interdependent teams is crucial to addressing adaptability.
However, Estafanous said that workforces often struggle with flexibility, particularly in inter-team collaboration. He pointed out that many of the issues teams used to resolve with a quick phone call or an impromptu chat in the hallway now require Zoom meetings. The informality of office interactions has been replaced by formal scheduling. Additionally, the busy nature of workdays means you often don’t have the time or cadences to foster better adaptability.
To overcome these challenges, Estafanous emphasizes the need to assess how team members collaborate with individuals outside their core working groups. “This external collaboration often involves catering to customer needs,” he said. “Your team must stay highly adaptable, keeping a keen eye on customer demands and market dynamics.”
Estafanous said the most significant challenge he’s observed among the various companies he works with is the need for adaptability between teams within an organization. “This requires an understanding of how different teams collaborate,” he said. “Ask various teams within your organization about how their colleagues can better support them. This is a great chance to get an outside perspective on an individual team’s performance.”
Attitude. Teams that shine have members who bring an optimistic “can do” attitude to work and don’t let obstacles or setbacks derail them, according to Estafanous.
“One way to assess the strength of your team’s attitude is to look at how they approach risk,” he said. “Is there a sense on your team that they can all brainstorm freely, experiment with ideas and test strategies that may fail? If not, you can take steps to encourage a more risk-tolerant culture, including signaling your supportive attitude through very intentional language.”
The way you engage with your team impacts its attitude. “It’s about instilling a growth mindset and encouraging members to learn from failures, experiment and maintain a shared sense of optimism,” Estafanous said. “This starts with self-awareness and understanding where each team member stands. Empathy is essential, but it needs to be accompanied by adaptive leadership behaviors to strengthen team engagement.”
Performance. High-performing teams get things done to meet and exceed their goals and objectives, Estafanous noted. “But performance also goes beyond the numbers. The process matters,” he said. “Are your team meetings productive? Can the group discuss issues and make related decisions quickly? Are the talents and expertise of all its members in play?”
If not, he added, your team will fail to continue to perform at a high-level over time.
The responsibility of building a high-performing team should not fall solely on the shoulders of leaders. Estafanous pointed to the importance of establishing a culture of full transparency to foster a shared effort among your team members. He said teams thrive when they collectively assess their strengths and vulnerabilities, decide which areas to focus on and take committed action to effect change. This approach reduces the cognitive and emotional load on leaders and fosters a sense of collective responsibility.
“Breaking down silos and promoting teamwork becomes more natural, as individual team members recognize they are working together to achieve a unified goal,” Estafanous said.
These five attributes provide a framework for measuring and improving team performance. To maintain and strengthen bonds and connections within your team, begin with self-awareness and an understanding of individual preferences for communication among your team members. “The alignment of goals and adaptability, particularly in inter-team interactions, are key areas in which many teams face challenges in the current work landscape,” he said.
Concentrating on one or more of these five key attributes will focus your energy on the efforts that will strengthen that area. Then, you can reassess periodically (through pulse surveys, for example) if your team is making progress.
“Making the target clear to your team will improve the chance they will take the actions that lead to progress and sustained long-term team success,” Estafanous said. “By understanding and measuring these metrics, you can best understand where your team is today and what steps should be taken to improve their future performance.”
